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MicroNations Fandom:Community Portal
This is the main discussion forum used for community-wide discussions about MicroWiki's operations, policies, design, and improvement. All members of the community are welcome to contribute to this page. Please sign and date your post by typing ~~~~ or clicking the signature icon in the edit toolbar. If you would like to start a new inquiry, please place it at the bottom of the page with a two-tier ( ) heading. In addition, past discussions from the Community Portal can be found at: *CP Archives lists all of the past discussions from the Community Portal page, including major discussions and chronological archives. = IMPORTANT:Future of MicroWiki = Stuff that is happening As many of you may be aware, Wikia are going to forcibly change every wiki's forum skin on Wikia to a new one called 'Oasis'. If you haven't yet had a chance to look at it, please do so under 'Preferences' --> 'Skin'. There has also been a lot of uproar over this decision by Wikia Staff to make the skin compulsory for guests with the following being major concerns: *Article width is fixed to only 660 px. This really screws up a lot of articles, especially ones with infoboxes and other templates *The alignment for a lot of the templates (especially infoboxes) is screwed up, meaning that all of them are now aligned in the centre. *More and larger ads (including a large Wikia banner at the top). **Wiki administrators are no longer allowed to place site notices (or anything else) along the top of the wiki's pages. **Wiki administrators are no longer allowed to remove 'core features' for all users by using custom CSS or JavaScript. ***Image attribution is enabled for all wikis. This means that every image displays the name of the user who uploaded it right in the article. Because of the above rule, this behaviour cannot be disabled for the wiki globally. *The logo area has been resized. *The sidebar is now almost 50% wider, causing it to use up almost 1/3 of the already reduced screen area. *The sidebar has been moved to the right side of the page. *It's going to stuff up widgets. *All the links currently accessible at the top of each page (i.e. 'history', etc.) are now only available in a drop down box (like the 'Vector' skin) *All wikis are being forced to transition to the new look **Only one wiki, Uncyclopedia, which has been exempted from the switch, for reasons unknown. **The staff is unreceptive to repeated pleas from editors not to make this skin mandatory. *Almost no customisation of the new skin is permitted. What's this got to do with us? The new skin screws up our wiki, more than some other wikis, because we have one heck of a lot of infoboxes and other templates on our pages, which the new reduced width stuffs up. We are also burdened with the responsibility of having one of the largest and most well-known community of micronations based around this wiki, and, as a result, a major screw-up like this could bring it down in activity and membership or even split it off altogether (I'm not trying to scaremonger here - just being realistic). A lot of other wikis are moving: http://community.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:Anti-Wikia_Alliance#Lists. Our options and opinions We have the following options: #Stay here and bear the changes. #Move to another wiki farm Please add your signature (and a short reason/comment if you want) to the relevant sub-heading below. I will stay on Wikia even if the forum moves I would like for MicroWiki to move to another host and I will move with it : If it stuffs up our articles, we need to move. § A-One § Your friendly neighbourhood Admin (Talk • ) 11:41, October 17, 2010 (UTC) : Tom Turner 11:45, October 17, 2010 (UTC) (A move is odviously nescecary if articles are going to mess up). : Definitely--Eleytheria (T / B / ) 11:56, October 17, 2010 (UTC) : Count me in, it's for the good of the community, so we need to get the hell outta Dodge. Knight990 12:01, October 17, 2010 (UTC) : Definitely. Ouch.jars, His Royal Überness Prince Jeremy Oakes of Optima 12:19, October 17, 2010 (UTC) : : If the things said here are true, this is what we should do.QuentinWyvern 13:09, October 17, 2010 (UTC) : I will move with it, if all the Articles and things are kept and nthings deleted, because people, including me have put a hell of a lot of hard work into some of the Articles. - Ken H :I just switched over and I must say, it is absolute crap. The quicker we leave, the better. (For the record I also think the current Monaco theme is butt-ugly :P) --SerCenKing Talk 13:47, October 17, 2010 (UTC) :can you spell "adios" I agree with Ken H, I've put a lot on here and I don't want to re-write it by memmory. I can look around for a new host if you want me to, save you some work. King Jackson Alexander I 14:16, October 17, 2010 (UTC) :Well the design is quite nice, however it is bad for our wiki, as it has been mentioned above. So I think we should move. But then it would be a matter of redoing all of the articles :| Crobak1 14:17, October 17, 2010 (UTC) :The new skin is actually pretty good, I think, but it's terrible for our wiki. We need something that does not stick to a certain size, that can have infoboxes without having the text look all cramped. The new skin would make everything look terrible. I'm in support of a move, but fist I want to speak with ze Admins and check where we shall move. --Cajak [★MicroWiki Admin★] 15:03, October 17, 2010 (UTC) :Secundomia (talk),( ),(blog),( ) 15:06, October 17, 2010 (UTC) I am going to have to agree. Stupid wikia. :Jeez, can't a guy plan his own micronation without the wiki hosts fiddling with the system? I've already noticed many of our micronation pages are now being squeezed to the point there's the article name, infobox, THEN the information. All they need to do is to tweak the skin so that we have more room to edit. Those light blue bands aren't being used for anything, after all. I do notice, however, that the old theme still renders...wouldn't it be a matter of all users just switching the old skin back on? I don't know, but I'll try it and get back to you about it. Daniel Anderson, Premier of the Federal Commonwealth of Sirocco since 2010. Nemine Contradicente. 19:21, October 17, 2010 (UTC) :This new design seems to be bad news for us, why does Uncyclopedia get to be exempted? that wiki is stupid and useless. If the Wikia people are going to act like this then good bye, Tschüs, au revoir arrivederci, vaarwel and don't let the door knob hit you where the good lord split you. King Anthony, King of Zealandia HMZ Government 19:39, October 17, 2010 (UTC) : I'll be moving. [[User:E-Sam|''e''-'Sam']] (Talk* ) 20:21, October 17, 2010 (UTC) :Ditto everyone else. I was a beta tester for the new skin a fair time ago and came up with similar complaints in the beta testing forums and other ways of feedback. Most of the other comments by other Wikia users were complaints and most people don't seem to like it. I ended up switching back to Monaco (the second newest skin) by the end of the day. If they kept Monaco on as an optional thing, I'd probably be fine with it. But as you may or may not know, they're removing the option to use Monaco as a skin on November 3rd. Meaning we're all stuck with Oasis, the codename for the new skin. Like everyone's said, it doesn't suit our Wiki, and it's pretty ugly anyway. However, I should probably mention I was never a huge fan of Monaco, it's just that it's far better than Oasis. Oasis is ugly, Oasis is crap, I don't want it. Hence a couple of weeks ago, I reserved a few domain names in case we decided to move. ;p wikkii.com, shoutwiki.com and referata.com subdomains have all been reserved by me. For when we all come to a consesus we have to move. =D Also, before you all complain about having to copy and paste everything over. This explains how to copy over anything and everything. I'm not sure exactly how much it copies over, but says that for the larger file, it copies over the current pages as well as history. So more or less everything. I see a database dump has been requested recently, so it should be okay. I tried it earlier, but I couldn't seem to get it to work as the connection just got reset while trying to upload it. Maybe someone who knows what they're doing will have better luck. Aldrich Lucas talk 20:27, October 17, 2010 (UTC) :I agree. I think the current format is fine and we've all become accustomed to it. So we're in favor of the move. Madam 'Secretary of State Victoria Bristow' Starland 03:11 October 18, 2010 (UTC) :I agree. Monaco is ugly enough, but the new 'Oasis' theme is like being sodomised in the optic nerve. Let's find a farm that uses Monobook. Pmrcalaby 06:16, October 18, 2010 (UTC), Prime Minister of Optima. :I agree. This will WRECK our wiki, so I'm in favour of moving.Westlandian 06:58, October 18, 2010 (UTC) : All of the above, probably... Joe Foxon'(MicroWiki Admin)' 14:28, October 18, 2010 (UTC) : Same as everyone else. Were are the rednecks? James Thomson 20:51, October 18, 2010 (UTC) :I hate change. A lot. We're moving. And that's final. AuburnAttack21 02:15, October 19, 2010 (UTC) :: I would like for MicroWiki to move to another host but I will not move with it I don't mind the new skin and we should tolerate it, but I will yield to a community decision : It's not that bad, i can vaugely remeber beta testing it too. Vitcash 12:06, October 17, 2010 (UTC) : The Kingdom of Theodia can deal with it, but we aren't entirely against moving anymore. :Where, exactly, are we planning to move? If we do move, it should be to a location where MicroWikiers have complete and total control over so that it can be optimized and tailored specifically to the Micronational Community. We should keep MicroCommons, however - in this way we can cut down on the total storage space at the new location. It should also be a location that has a WikiCode that is very similar to that of Wikia's. This will help to make editing more familiar and comfortable for those of us who prefer to edit the code directly. ~ Ða Þȷåd wo Þeodıa 16:26, October 17, 2010 (UTC) * Many wikis have gone through similar changes, and I believe this is only a minor problem that will be easy to tolerate eventually. Kyng Fyrst 17:47, October 18, 2010 (UTC) : Look, I'm using this very skin right now. To be honest, it runs faster on my PC because it's less cluttered up with HTML crap and the adverts have been placed in a better location. If we move, a lot of people will have to go through a lot of pain to move every picture etc. and some of us do not want to face rewriting every single article. We have built a magnificent community here on MicroWiki, and to see us having to move with the luggage including the kitchen sink is REALLY not practical for a lot of us. I'll leave you to decide. --James Puchowski, Premier of the Landashir'n Government, MicroWiki Patroller (User:cplandashir) 16:11, October 19, 2010 (UTC) I like the new skin and don't want anything to change : Maybe I'm stupid but I like the new skin. About infoxes: it can be on the center of site and text will be down. Patryk Adam Bronisz 12:39, October 17, 2010 (UTC) : O.o--Eleytheria (T / B / ) 15:45, October 18, 2010 (UTC) They took our Freedom!! Where are the Redneck Pissed off white conservatives when you need them? : Brad1201 12:31, October 17, 2010 (UTC) : I am with Bradley on this one. Why the hell are they doing this to us?! We were happy and we should just stay as we are. : James Wilary of the People's reformed States Republic 18:52, October 17, 2010 (UTC) : They may take our wiki, but they may never take''' our freedom'! Actually, I matters little to me what happens, as my nation isn't bound to the wiki, though it is the most useful tool for any micronationalist to get noticed and legitimized quickly. However, why must we giveway? The status quo is compatible and complete; don't fix what ain't broken, Wikia! '"I'm as mad as Hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"' I'm going to wait and watch, if you don't mind a stick in the mud. Son3 01:06, October 18, 2010 (UTC) : I understand them being fasionaly progressive, but screwing up our wiki? Now that is just unconscious tyranny. M.J.K. 15:24, October 18, 2010 (UTC) Result Overwhelmingly, it seems that we are going to move. We will prepare our new home for a few days and see if we can upload the database dump to the new wiki to avoid having to manually move everything (a well neigh impossible task) over to the new place. Thank you all for your participation :) § A-One § Your friendly neighbourhood Admin (Talk • ) 23:01, October 19, 2010 (UTC) :Are we moving to the shoutwiki one? If so, I still haven't received a reply from the tech support about the database and it seems the still isn't ready. : Aldrich Lucas talk 09:01, October 20, 2010 (UTC) ::Yes and we're working on it. § A-One § Your friendly neighbourhood Admin (Talk • ) 09:52, October 20, 2010 (UTC) :::There is an import page to upload the database dump. http://micronations.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Special:Import. Will admins from this wiki become admins on the new one? Joe Foxon'(MicroWiki Admin)' 11:39, October 20, 2010 (UTC) ::::Can we get the .css file for the Monaco skin and use it at shoutwiki? I like the Monaco skin better than MonoBook. ::::Secundomia (talk),( ),(blog),( ) 15:02, October 20, 2010 (UTC) :::::When will the transfer take place (from which date to which date? MaartenGlorie 20:26, October 20, 2010 (UTC) ::::::Thank god (for the bouge pointers, gods) that we are moving from this place. and I agree with secundomia, we should get the .css file of Monaco and continue to use it, its just one of thoughs things that can't be left behind. King Jackson Alexander I 20:59, October 20, 2010 (UTC) :::::::@Joe Foxon - Yes but that's out of date (it's from September). We're trying to get a more recent one off Wikia. But if we can't, we'll just have to use that one. Active admins on this wiki will be transferred over to the new one. :::::::@Secundomia - Yes we will try to do that. We already have the .css and we'll see what we can do on the new one. :::::::@MaartenGlorie - When we have successfully moved the database dump over to the new location, then everyone can begin moving their users over etc. :::::::Any other questions, please ask :) § A-One § Your friendly neighbourhood Admin (Talk • ) 22:53, October 20, 2010 (UTC) ::::::::You can select this: http://micronations.shoutwiki.com/wiki/User:Parker_I/modern.css as your custom skin in Shout wiki, looks somewhat like Monaco, slightly off. Secundomia (talk),( ),(blog),( ) 00:44, October 21, 2010 (UTC) So just to be clear, all articles on MicroWiki will be transferred to ShoutWiki, correct? We (Starland) don't have to worry about transferring any articles over ourselves, do we? ~''Madam 'Secretary of State Victoria Bristow 'Starland 03:52 October 21, 2010 (UTC) :@Secundomia, they offer three skins by default - Monobook, Modern and Cologne Book - all of which are rather ugly. =P However, hopefully the Monaco skin will work. :@Starland, hopefully yes. However, I'm not sure to what extent images will be copied over. :Also, I finally got a reply of sorts back. *parties* I sent an email to the technical support staff three days ago which didn't receive a reply. So instead I contacted the Customer Support Staff which replied two hours later. Fortunately, you can follow the 'ticket' at http://support.shoutwiki.com/view.php?id=535924 Turns out you can't follow it as it requires authentication. In short, I got a reply saying it's been added to the import queue but it could take a while as lots of other Wikis are moving over. Patience is a virtue. : Aldrich Lucas talk 09:11, October 21, 2010 (UTC) : : Shoutwiki is awful. It's a bad idea to move there. RepublicOfLostisland 10:06, October 21, 2010 (UTC) ::It would be most appreciated if some users could stay on this MicroWiki to continue editing pages when necessary. Kyng Fyrst 16:02, October 21, 2010 (UTC) ::Dump is still not ready. Come Database! Dump already! Secundomia (talk),( ),(blog),( ) 16:32, October 21, 2010 (UTC) :I'm a little upset that this is happening. But it's the admins' choice. Good luck with the move guys. --James Puchowski, Premier of the Landashir'n Government, MicroWiki Patroller (User:cplandashir) 19:47, October 21, 2010 (UTC) ::Aha! This seems very good. And this says that we can pay for the Monaco skin if we want it. D: ::Aldrich Lucas talk • 20:42, October 21, 2010 (UTC) What will happen to this wiki? Answer: It stays as a sort of archive. Currently we're having a few problems with moving, but nothing that can't be fixed. Now I know that a few people want to stay behind, I'm willing to stay behind as admin for a few weeks while we transfer everything over etc. After this period, we're putting a huge sitewide notice on every page that we have moved and no changes from this wiki will be transferred over to the new one after the database dump occurs. § A-One § Your friendly neighbourhood Admin (Talk • ) 08:29, October 31, 2010 (UTC) :I'd like to add: since we'd like to move our activity from here to the new wiki, even if someone is willing to stay and edit, I really discourage you from doing so, for one simple reason: MicroWiki on Wikia will probably become an archive, as Philip said, and therefore it is not expected to change. Probably a template that redirects to ShoutWiki will be created, so that those who see pages here can find the "updated" version of all your articles too. For this reason, I advice everyone to move with the rest instead of having a divide that would be counterproductive for both wikis. --Cajak [★MicroWiki Admin★] 08:45, October 31, 2010 (UTC) ::May i ask, What if we don't want to move? André Sammut Pres. of BlueSkies and proud of it!(Talk),( ) 09:00, October 31, 2010 (UTC) :::The community voted to leave. Why people would still stay here is beyond me. As mentioned by Cajak, it's counterproductive and would just be a nuisance having to update two sets of articles. Yes, I know the new Wiki isn't up yet *angry face* but it's worked for other Wikis so hopefully the ShoutWiki support team will import it soon. The dump from Wikia still hasn't been updated either, despite it saying that dumps are generated on a weekly basis (the last one was from one and a half months ago). So it seems support on both sides has been lacking. I've sent import requests to the two other Wikis I've mentioned earlier on but no response so far. Aldrich Lucas talk • 09:06, October 31, 2010 (UTC) ::::It's me again. Can someone please try http://absurdopedia.net/wiki/Участник:Edward_Chernenko/MediaWikiDumper? I personally haven't a clue to what any of it means and how to run it, but the guy seems to know what he's doing - hopefully someone else does too. Because if it works...*party time* So could someone with sufficient knowledge please try it out? 'Twould be greatly appreciated. I don't know it what it saves it all as and how we're supposed to import it though. Again, someone with sufficient knowledge is needed. Aldrich Lucas talk • 10:46, October 31, 2010 (UTC) :::::A ShoutWiki template would be a good idea, but we would still like the option to continue making a few edits here from time to time. Kyng Fyrst 16:01, November 2, 2010 (UTC) ::::::Database dump is ready! ::::::--Secundomia (talk),( ),(blog),( ) 19:15, November 2, 2010 (UTC) ::::::: Party time! Oh good, at least when it gets copied over it'll be more up-to-date. =D Aldrich Lucas talk • 19:24, November 2, 2010 (UTC) I'm confused. The main page says that MicroWiki will be moving at 14:02 on November 2, 2010. Which time zone is this, GMT/UTC, GMT+1 or what? Sirocco runs on GMT+12 (+13 as we're on Daylight Savings right now), meaning we're basically ahead of all of you, so we don't know when the shift is taking place. Also, I've had a squiz at the new ShoutWiki page and it seems very little has changed there, even though it's now November 3, GMT. Could someone clarify please? Daniel Anderson, Premier of the Federal Commonwealth of Sirocco since 2010. Nemine Contradicente. 06:19, November 3, 2010 (UTC) : Aaah, sorry about the confusion. What it means is that the database dump was made at 14:02 UTC, 02/11/10 meaning that all subsequent edits won't go over when we move. We're still sorting out importing (silly customer support) and the actual time of moving over is unclear. So no, we're not moving at 14:02 November 2, which, as you pointed out, has already happened. Rather, any edits made after that time won't be included. Another interesting thing, it's November 3rd almost everywhere in the world and yet Monaco still hasn't been removed... Update: According to this, it'll be changed in a bit more than an hour. D= Aldrich Lucas talk • 07:48, November 3, 2010 (UTC) :: No... *cries* They removed it. I've changed to MonoBook on here and...it's ugly. The whole thing's white. Boring, dull white. No background colour or picture or anything. And there's a stupid sidebar to the right with absolutely nothing on it, making the middle editing bar smaller. Plus the ads are still there at the bottom and the left sidebar has too many useless links. And for some reason blog comments are massive while the recent changes page is awful... Aldrich Lucas talk • 19:34, November 3, 2010 (UTC) Moving over It's me...still. Some good news and some bad news. I've figured out why the import doesn't work (good). According to this, MediaWiki can only import XML files less than 1.8MB in size and, weighing in at 536MB, the database dump is a bit over the limit (bad). So, what do we do? Manually copy it over (bad). More specifically, those who feel willing to, can copy it over. Fortunately, it's not article-by-article, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V kind of stuff (good). I'll explain the options first - we can do one of the following things: #Stay here on Wikia because it's too much of a hassle or you've changed your mind, despite the fact that both skins are crappy and it doesn't seem like it will get any better anytime soon. #Move to ShoutWiki because many of us have already made accounts on there and we've already kind of migrated there, despite the fact lots of people don't like MonoBook a whole lot. #Move to Wikkii because ... we can. It has MonoBook and ads, not really any good points. #Move to Referata. Yes, you'll all have to reregister (for some a second time). But, they have good support, aren't a huge company who only care about money, have zero ads, use Semantic MediaWiki and (I left the best till last) offer, among other skins including Monobook, Vector (the new Wikipedia skin) as well as having a visual editor! Which is awesome because it will please those who hate Oasis as well as those who hate MonoBook. It's a win-win situation! (P.S. the current background colour can be changed) Obviously, my favourite option is number four, moving to Referata as it's nice and pretty. So vote on that please. Now to the other things. Because I've had to shrink the XML files to 1.8MB or less, exporting the files has become a pain in the ass. What I've had to do is use and . No, don't go over and try doing your job just yet. Importing on whichever host we move to requires using which is locked for Admin use only. Hence, I'll explain in private to the admins how to do it and instead conduct another survey. =P Larger pages with a long history of revisions (e.g. Yabloko) can't be exported in a single 1.8MB file. Hence, I can only export the current revision of some of the larger pages. Smaller pages with fewer revisions are fine and can be exported with the full history intact. But, this creates some incomformity. So, are we to... #Export as many of the pages as we can that are under the 1.8MB limit and then just get the current revision for longer pages; OR #Export all the pages with the current revision only and use the Wikia wiki as an archive for those interested in pre-November 2010 revisions. I'm not fussed either way though it's a lot quicker to do option number two for me personally. So, that's it. Choose your number out of the two parts and I hope for the best. Aldrich Lucas talk • 05:34, November 4, 2010 (UTC) :Referata definitely looks better than ShoutWiki (and Wikkii), so I support moving there. If only taking the latest revision is much faster, I'm fine with that. ouch.jars, HRÜ Prince Jeremy Oakes of Optima 08:41, November 4, 2010 (UTC) ::Oppose,why we have to move either? Adriansyah Yassin Sulaeman 10:32, October 3rd, 2010 (UTC) :Referata. --Secundomia (talk),( ),(blog),( ) 14:57, November 4, 2010 (UTC) :Referata Westlandian 20:49, November 4, 2010 (UTC) :Referata as Wiki; Current Revision for import. ~ Ða Þȷåd wô Þeodıa 03:41, November 5, 2010 (UTC) :ShoutWiki looks best and most reliable, and has been rated highest by all other moving wiki admins. As to the other thing, Current Revision.--Eleytheria (T / B / ) 05:36, November 5, 2010 (UTC) :Referata and Current RevisionHMZ Government 11:31, November 5, 2010 (UTC) :Any wiki option should be fine as long as the original MicroWiki is still open for secondary use. For the latter options, #1 would be nice. Kyng Fyrst 15:56, November 5, 2010 (UTC) :I would be fine with staying here. This MonoBook looks better than Shout Wiki's HolySalanianEmpire 04:42, November 6, 2010 (UTC) Category:MicroWiki